Things my friends do: Human Knife Sharpener

This Tan Yee Hou has been wanting to come and sharpen my knives since forever.

Huh, sharpen knives? Just buy the bulat bulat tool that they sell for RM50 or less lah! Why so ma fan, have to ask someone to physically come and sharpen the knives? All the same one lah!

Turns out, it’s not all the same. Apparently this Tan Yee Hou is really into it. It’s a family thing, the tools he possesses belong to his grandfather or something and you can’t find those types of sharpening stones any more.

So one fine day, a 20 something year old boy was stuck in my sister’s bathroom sharpening a lot of knives the old school way.

I found out that he has learned a lot about knife sharpening, i.e. knives to cut vegetables or meat have different angles so must be sharpened accordingly. He’s the de facto knife sharpener in his family. They buy cheap knives from the night market + sharpen regularly = works like a RM500 knife.

The sharpened knives work beautifully. An el cheapo knife that I possess chops up carrots like a brand new Zwilling cleaver. Fanbloodytastic!

If you’d like your knives sharpened the old school way for a small fee, go contact Tan Yee Hou.

@Izad – Serrated knives need special tools to do it, very small sharpening rods. You’re right that you rarely need to sharpen them anyway, so investing in costly equipment to do things that we rarely perform doesn’t make much sense to our humble household.

Besides, the only use we have for serrated blades are for breads and steaks. They’ve been around for ages and we’ve never had to sharpen them, mainly due to lack of use.

I can do all straight non-ceramic blades. Ceramic blades cannot be sharpened as they will shatter / chip under normal sharpening conditions, and again require special tools.

@Lance & James – Drop me a word at [tanyeehou at googlemale dot kom] (sorry, anti-spam) and I’ll be happy to drop by!